From the Mind of MandoRon

This morning, I thought I’d share a few blogs with you that I’ve stumbled across recently.

• First up is a fellow GracePointer, Mina Miller.  Mina just started a blog.  Check out her first post.
• Second, is my brother’s website - www.wisdomfortheday.com.  Every few days, Jason posts a new web comic that he created.  You are likely to find puns, satire, sarcasm, etc…  Here’s one of my favorites.  Be sure to check out his tweets too.
• And third, my new favorite blog - Letters from Kamp Krusty.  Brant Hansen is a radio show host and one of the funniest bloggers that I’ve read.  I’m jealous of people that can pull off sarcasm and satire, without coming across as bitter.  Check out his Letter to Obama about trying to find time to do an interview.  His discussion about women’s arms, however, is what really endeared me to him.

What other blogs should I be reading/sharing?  Let me know in a comment.

There’s a song you need to check out.  Click here to get to Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Setlist post.  Scroll about halfway down, and you will find where Fred embedded Brian Doerkson performing Psalm 13.  Fred’s church used it as a lament during their service.

1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?

2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3 Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;

4 My enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;my heart rejoices in your salvation.

6 I will sing to the Lord,for he has been good to me.

- Psalm 13, For the director of music. A psalm of David. 

It’s crazy good.  I just about cried listening to it.

Click here to download it off itunes.  I did.

Welcome to the March Madness edition of the Sunday Setlist.  Fred McKinnon has been getting about 75 similar setlists each week from people all over the world.  Be sure to check out the other setlists this week.

Nothing to do with the setlist, but this was my first week mixing FOH (front of house) on the new Yamaha LS9.  No major screwups (other than a mistimed mute) for my first week using a digital mixer!

Today at GracePoint…

• My Redeemer Lives by Hillsong
• Hold You High by By the Tree
• Song of Hope by Robbie Seay Band
• I Won’t Back Down by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• Breathe by Marie Barnett (prayer time & offering)

My Redeemer Lives is still alive and well at GP.  I know that some other churches have canned this one, but it is still working quite well with our church.  Bruce added in some nice “fuzz” on lead guitar this week.

Hold You High is a great worship anthem.  How can you not be moved by “I want to be the one who holds You high!”?

Song of Hope …  Awesome song.  Nice job on the keys Rod!

I Won’t Back Down …  This new series is shaping up to be a Tom Petty-themed one.  Kudos to the band.

Breathe  Jamie was awesome on this one.  I love the line, “I’m desperate for you.”  We’ve been doing this one in F# the last few years, but I think the band ended up playing this in A to fit Jamie’s range better.

The band: 1 female vocal,  2 male vocals, 2 electric guitars, bass guitar, keys, drums.

That’s about all for tonight.  I’ve got to go finish (i.e. start over) a guest blog post.

Have a great week!

Hello, and welcome back to what I believe is going to be my last post in the Lion Chaser’s Manifesto series.  For you review is part 1, part 2, and part 3.

I’d like to talk about one more statement in Mark Batterson’s “Lion Chaser’s Manifesto”.

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.

Keep making mistakes…

In my first supervisory position, I worked for a wonderful manager who gave me great freedom to experiment and learn.  He felt that people learned far more from failing then being told what to do.  His rule, however, was “don’t make the same mistake twice; and don’t make any big mistakes.”

I’m a firm believer in this philosophy.

Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch is too.  His most recent book, IT, take a lot about  learning by failing.

Last week, LifeChurch’s Swerve blog had three articles on failure by Craig.  I highly recommend checking them out.

• Failing Selectively
• Failing Forward
  
• Avoid Failing Fatally (this kind of goes along with my boss’ rule of not making any big mistakes)

What have you screwed up this week?

This is part 3 in my impromptu Lion Chaser’s Manifesto series.  Read the original post and part 2, if you’d like.

When I read this Manifesto from Mark Batterson for the first time, there were several things that jumped out at me.  I thought they were worth elaborating upon.

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.

“Criticize by creating“…  I had to think about that one for a while.  It seemed odd to use the word criticize (a rather pessimistic word) in the midst of all this optimisim.  It’s a bit of an oxymoron - like “kill them with kindness”.

But it goes back to the earlier phrase “Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution.”  So many people are quite happy to just complain, or at best, to simply communicate the problems.  Don’t just bring your problems to me, bring potential solutions.  Let’s talk about potential fixes, rather than wasting breath bemoaning the problem…

Is the status quo in your job/church/family/organization driving you nuts?  Get creative and find a better way.  Volunteer to fix it.  Put your nay-saying energy to a better use.

What do you need to stop criticizing and, instead, start creating a solution to?